I was exhausted today. I slept 1.5 hours from 6:30am till about 8ish. I was up all night because my SVT kicked up. SVT is Supraventricular Tachycardia. Basically the heart’s electrical system doesn’t work right, causing the heart to beat very fast. The heart beats at least 100 beats per minute and may reach 300 beats per minute. After treatment or on its own, the heart usually returns to a normal rate of 60 to 100 beats a minute. It’s caused by an extra little piece of skin/flesh that gets in the way and short circuits the heart/blood pumping machine. As described quite simply by Dr. kitten courtesy of webmd :)
I have been getting these little “episodes” since I was about 20 or so? Although they used to only ever last 2-5 minutes and I’d get them *maybe* once a year. Now I would say I get them 3-4 times a year and sometimes they last 2-5 minutes and then they have lasted about 8 hours (much like last night’s.) I’m pretty darn healthy (super low blood pressure, super low heart rate, exercise regularly, no smoking, no drugs, drink very little, eat pretty well, no weird issues that have come up) so feel no need to go to the doctor unless I’m bleeding out my eyes.
A chiropractor friend of mine suggested going to the doctor and checking it out since it was a heart issue. He didn’t like my plan of ignoring it with my usual “Ahh..I’m fine”. Ok, fine..sounds like a good idea to get a check-up but I HATE doctors. I like my dermatologist. I’m sure I’d love my plastic surgeon :) But regular doctors – I think they are basically like weathermen. They have all this information and technology and still it’s like throwing a dart at a dartboard.
But I did go in for a physical and asked the doctor about it. She told me it was anxiety. I told her she was wrong. She assured me it was. I told her again she wrong. Not a believer in that. Sorry. She smiled. She said next time it happens, take a walk outside to distract myself. I’m a big believer in taking a walk as a cure for many things but I did not think this was one of them. But, hey – she went to Stanford Medical School and I didn’t. She was the doctor with her own clinic. I wasn’t.
The next time it started I was driving to work. It’s a weird feeling – my heart starts to pump very hard (you can actually see my chest pumping) and my blood is racing. So much so that after a little while, my arms and legs start to feel cold and tingly and I get a bit nauseous and dizzy as no blood is getting to my extremities as it’s been short-circuited. I was only about 15 minutes from work so I got there and decided to try this walk around thing. Turned out exactly as I assumed it would. My heart started pounding more – to where my chest actually hurts. I had the dogs with me. I got them inside and asked one of my co-workers to watch them so I could lie down. She clearly was worried as she called my husband. Now, up until now if I laid down for a couple minutes they always went away. This time it had been going for 25 minutes and wasn’t stopping.
After about 30 minutes of lying down, a friend from work drove me to the ER and on the drive even I started getting a bit worried – like maybe this is a big deal? TIP – if you ever want INSTANT attention in a crowded ER, say it’s your heart. Man alive – I have never seen people move so fast! Was like an episode of ER. The nurse had me taken to the back, on a gurney and hooked up to a machine with 2 other nurses/interns taking vitals, etc in like 3 minutes. And yeah – this will freak you out.
The nurse looked at my heart rate and said “page the doctor!” Great…this sounds good…afterward she told me my heart rate was higher than she has ever seen register. Sheesh…do I get a reward for that? A lollipop at least? As I was laying there, waiting for the doctor it stopped. Bam – just like that. I told them but obviously they were not letting me just get up and go. They let my friend come back to sit with me. The doctor came in and described my symptoms. I said yes – those are it. He explained what he thought it was (SVT) but strongly urged me to see a cardiologist to run tests to confirm. Meh. Ok…he also said my blood sugar was low and asked if I was dieting a lot. No. But I never eat breakfast. He gave me frowny-face. And told my husband (who had arrived by now) to make sure I ate and rested for the rest of the day (Nice! Doctor’s orders!)
So I did go to the cardiologist and he confirmed it was SVT. Not really serious in the grand scheme of things as long as I didn’t get these episodes too frequently. You can’t die from it unless you keep walking while it’s going on and pass out from the lack of blood and then crack open your skull on the sidewalk. Keep walking eh? I told him what the doctor told me about it being anxiety and to go for walks when it started. He said that was the most irresponsible non-diagnosis he had ever heard and was angry that a doctor would say that without running a simple test to check for SVT which is not all that uncommon. Ha! Knew that crazy doctor was wrong! The scary thing is she offered me a prescription for psych drugs then too – you know to “calm me down” if I wanted. How many people just listen to her?
He said when it starts, lay down. Feet up. Stay hydrated and relaxed. There is a medication but he said the side effects are worse than the episodes so unless they are crippling and frequent, he didn’t recommend the meds. You can also get surgery to correct it I think bu I’ll leave the surgery to the elective kind ;-)
Since I now know what it is, it’s not scary. Just annoying. It has happened while I’m on the beach with the huskies (highly annoying as I have to sit down and they are not big on sitting down while at the beach!) and at work. Kinda sorta funny looking to be laying down on the floor in my office.
It happened again a couple years ago and it lasted all night long. This was by far the longest one. Started when I went to bed and by 7am or so it still hadn’t stopped (and I hadn’t slept) so off to the ER I went again. Again – heart – instant service! They gave me IV fluids (which by the way I love as my skin looked SO awesome for days after!) and ran some blood tests to rule stuff out. Hello – I already told you what it is. But you can’t tell doctors your diagnosis…sigh…
Since it wasn’t stopping and my heart was still in full race mode there are 2 ways to stop it: administer a drug via IV or use the de-fib machine to “reset” the heart. Umm…let’s try the drug first. So as the doctor is getting ready to give it to me he says “this will make you feel like you are dying. I just wanted you to know how you will feel so you don’t get upset.” Oh, and he had the nurse bring over the de-fib machine. The medication slows your heart waaay down, so if it goes down too much, they need the de-fib to restart. But they would start by giving me the minimum dose to try and avoid that. Great…
Wow – the doctor described that feeling perfectly. It actually felt like everything was fading away, breathing was more labored (even though he said it wasn’t actually – just how I felt) and the only way to describe it is like light was collapsing into darkness. Tears instantly came to my eyes even though I tried very hard to stop that and tell myself it was all fine. Not something I would recommend for fun…
BUT, then it was fine. That feeling only lasted maybe a minute (although it felt much, much longer) and then my heart was normal. He said my chest and body will hurt for the next day or so as my body just went through the equivalent of running a marathon for 8 hours straight. He said rest, hydrate and eat only. No doing anything else. Luckily this was a Sunday so that was an easy order to follow.
Since then I have had a few episodes that lasted 30-40 minutes, and the rest very quick, but nothing like that one. Until last night. I can always feel them coming on in the few seconds before they start and I was like “oh crap – I don’t have time for this.” But I got a glass of water, into bed and laid there for a bit watching TV. I fell asleep for a few minutes but it’s not so easy to sleep when your heart is racing. Husband was out of town with Angelus so I decided to wait it out and not try the ER. And that’s how it was until 6:26am. And then it just stopped. Storm was still sleeping (yay for my sweet doggie!) So I tried to sleep until about 8:00am and got up.
For 1.5 hours of sleep – I think I’m doing OK today! I must be naturally high on Christmas and the knowledge that my 10 days of holiday time in Tahoe starts in 2 days :) Although my chest and arms are quite sore. The plan was to leave work early but that didn’t really work out. Need to make sure a lot gets done before holidays and year-end. But I didn’t stay too late, got home, put on the game and proceeded to run around and do a few chores. No dummy – SIT DOWN! But now I’m sitting. Hopefully I’ll be sound asleep by 10pm :)
So in conclusion…don’t listen to some doctor’s diagnosis when it sounds completely wrong!
